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CellPoint Mobile Author | Auteur: Ciaran Wilson ’ve always considered the African airline sector as one of those unique cases where the bottom line result doesn’t capture Iboth sides of the equation. On one side are the collective financials: African carriers collectively lose about $100 million each year, according to IATA. On the other side is growth: we see the evolution of an intercontinental hub in Africa for air travel, potentially centered in Addis Ababa …or Johannesburg …or Nairobi …or your city. But beyond the macroeconomics of commercial aviation in Africa, what are the region’s travellers expecting and demanding today? Like most travellers across the globe, they want convenience and they want it straight from their mobile devices. How can African carriers fully leverage the mobile channel to make travel easier for passengers, cut payment transaction costs, increase bookings and get around some of the continent’s more challenging logistical and commercial issues when it comes to cross-border commerce? The challenges of Air Travel in Africa The CEO of South Africa Airways (SAA), Vuyani Jarana, recently addressed the IATA Annual General Meeting in Sydney and reminded the airline industry that flag carriers are not state departments. “We are businesses that compete for the attention of the customer,” he said. This need to connect directly with the customer is precisely why more African carriers, from legacy airlines to low-cost (LCC) and ultra-low-cost (ULCC) carriers, are leveraging mobile devices as their primary “point of contact” with passengers. 49 These legacy PSPs have few connections to local bank acquirers, no leverage when it comes to transaction processing fees and no incentive to develop their portfolio of payment methods to serve their clients’ needs in new markets. And while legacy PSPs have longstanding relationships in the airline industry, they have not built out the global “rails” needed in today’s dynamic payment environment that airlines can “ride over” to meet new payment needs (rather than depending entirely on traditional banking systems). Ethiopian Airlines, for example, now has access to a vast selection of payment methods through its partnership with CellPoint Mobile. We recently completed our first APM integration for Ethiopian to accept payment via China’s Alipay. And because we have an ongoing PSP partnership with the airline, we are able to rapidly integrate new payment methods It’s not uncommon for Africans travelling culture. More recently, Ethiopian signed as the company increases capacity and internationally to encounter inconvenient an agreement to launch Chad’s new expands into new markets. The velocity connections or other route-related national carrier, Tchadia Airlines, giving payment platform (deployed earlier this headaches. Africa accounts for roughly Ethiopian a crucial hub in the center of the year by Ethiopian) can even route payment 12% of the world’s population but just continent. transactions dynamically between 1% of its air travel market, spread across Lack of flexibility when it comes to route multiple PSPs to get the best transaction 54 countries, which helps explain why networks sometimes forces carriers to pricing for airlines. the continent’s route networks are still prop up underperforming routes and Anticipating tomorrow’s solutions a work in progress. For instance, flying double down on their past investments. to the Central African Republic from today Unfortunately, this mentality seeps By 2050, the African continent will Chad (neighbouring countries) would through to other areas of the airline require a flight from N’Djamena to Paris be home to 2.5 billion consumers and organization as growth and innovation African airlines will be competitively and Paris to Bangui, or if the traveller are put off to the future or not prioritized. is lucky, just a layover in Casablanca situated between the world’s largest travel CellPoint Mobile provides the mobile- regions (Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle via Royal Air Maroc. Leisure travellers first architecture that airlines need may have the time flexibility (if not the East). CellPoint Mobile can help African to make scalable investments in new airlines cut costs in payment processing patience) to accommodate this convoluted technology solutions as needs and route structure, but imagine the constraints this fees – an urgent business case as passenger networks evolve. There is a growing volumes grow – while building a new imposes on global business travellers with disconnect between what travellers expect meetings, deadlines and deals to finalise? mobile architecture that is more flexible, and what airlines are providing when interoperable and scalable for future While African airlines cannot instantly it comes to seamless transactions and growth, and helps airlines connect more solve their route network challenges, they communications. Our solutions can help directly with passengers. can use the mobile channel to create a airlines strengthen sales and marketing in more seamless passenger experience across the mobile channel. I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work countries and markets, significantly cut with quite a few African airlines and help costs and reduce overhead by enabling Mobile-First solutions for African them find the right mobile solutions for more passenger self-service opportunities, Airlines their business needs. But African aviation make the most of existing revenue streams The possibilities for revenue and loyalty is growing rapidly and so are the number and add many new ones. in the mobile channel are limited by of airlines succeeding on the continent – airline apps that have been “left for dead,” let’s discuss how we can work together to Flexibility and interoperability in or else were never built for a mobile- make travel easier and more profitable for the mobile channel first environment where flexibility and your airline and its passengers. Ethiopian Airlines, a CellPoint Mobile interoperability are key. When it comes customer which recently integrated Alipay to mobile payments, for example, most through our Velocity payment platform, African airlines will have a single payment has become one of the continent’s best- service provider (PSP) that meets their known success stories. Partly because it is legacy needs and is essentially a legacy ideally positioned on the Horn of Africa vendor. This PSP partner may have been and partly because of its strong focus on serving airlines’ payment needs for years, business fundamentals and organizational but they have not evolved far beyond that. 50.

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